Social Media System for Tourism Marketing Success

Course Content

6:36

These are very practical tips I just want to give you to make sure that what you post is effective for your business. So we've already said it's better to focus on one channel that you really understand rather than trying to split across several. And you know now I hope that not everyone sees each post, so you need to get engagement. One of the things that works best is to understand each channel and what happens there, what's effective because it's not the same thing across all channels. So for example, using one big photo works better on Facebook, whereas using a carousel works better on Instagram.

If on Facebook, you can't decide which of your 12 photos to post and you put them on there, then Facebook decides how to sort of show them. You can edit it and move them around, but the pictures then become very small, especially if someone's looking at them on their phone and they lose their impact so it's better to just do one big photo. If, you do that on Instagram then you might find that the engagement just isn't as good as on carousels which seem to be working much better at the moment. And the other thing that people don't seem to use or always understand is that the first line of your post, wherever you post that really, really counts and getting this right is not easy, but with some practice it gets easier and easier, but it makes a massive massive difference as to whether someone clicks on the see more and you need them to click on the see more in order for them to get engaged. So you saw my gentleman Jack post there, I'd done something which was really using intrigue and that's one way of getting people to click on the see more.

So you need to give value. It can be really useful to ask questions in that first line and also to say something that encourages comments. Just saying please comment or please like doesn't work. You need to say something that encourages comments and you learn to do that over time. You see quickly what works, what doesn't work.

And then also, when I write a post, I will put in spaces because it's easier for someone to read than if it's just one big thick paragraph. I also have noticed over the last couple of years, longer posts do quite well, so you don't need to just write two lines, although sometimes two lines works well. But what I do know is that if I do an introductory line and then a space and then another line, which I would do for a blog because it encourages people to read on and I would do that in a mailing, it gets people to read the next bit having that white space. But on Facebook and Instagram, it doesn't work because it means that you haven't got long enough to convince someone to click the see more button. So be careful.

You might have a brilliant second line, but you've put a space and so people don't see it. So think about your first line. It's worth writing something then having a look on your phone at how that post appears, how much can people actually see before they see more, is that what's working. So really spend a bit of time finessing your first line. And then the other thing is learn from my mistake in the early days I included a lot of links and Facebook and Instagram, well Instagram is different anyway, but Facebook does not want you to include lots of links.

I now rarely put in links. I do put in some, but you keep people on the channel and you give them as much information as possible. And if you include a link, you might put it in the comments, except if that's a really critical link. Remember that if someone shares the post, they might not see it. And also if there are lots of comments, they might not see that link.

But bear in mind that just sending people to a link within your text is not a good idea anymore. Just to give you an example here, so that is not a very attractive picture. It's just of a stoop in the countryside on a January day and it looks muddy, bit odd, but maybe it looks different to all the other beautiful posts on Facebook. Perhaps that's why it got such a response. This one took me by surprise.

You saw there 5,000 likes and lots of comments and shares. Now I get I started this with a question, and I think the reason people, clicked on the see more there is many of us have passed through one of these. We have seen one of these. And so when they read that, there's a sort of a sense of familiarity. And when we feel familiar with something, we feel we identify comforted somehow, and we want to know more about it.

We're sort of reinforcing that sense of comfort. So when I say something like this is an icon of the countryside, people want to know a little bit more about it. So you'll see there very, very little information before the see more button. You need to think about that. This is a different kind of post, but it also has a question in it.

And I haven't said have you seen this. I've said you've perhaps noticed it. And what that means is that people who have noticed it think yes, I have, and the people that haven't think, oh, what is it? Why would I have noticed it? Whereas if you say have you, it's a yes or no response.

And if you say no, then you perhaps rule yourself out of the post. You think it's not relevant to you. And this post got a lot of people responding with their own information. Now some of their information completely irrelevant, but people did start to comment. And, I've repeated this post several times, in fact, because every single time lots of people comment, and so I know it's a good one for building engagement.

I'm going to talk in the next section about how you maybe just slightly change your mindset so you become a better content creator.

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